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B
E
I
 NVINCIBLE
 Foreword
by Dick Vermeil, former head coach, Philadelphia Eagles
When I took the Philadelphia Eagles job in thewinter of 1976, I went in knowing that they didn’thave a first, second or third round draft pick until1978. That’s three years in a row without qualitydraft choices, and they hadn’t had a winning seasonin ten years. We were fortunate that back then,there were 17 rounds in the draft instead of theseven they have now, so we would at least gain innumbers. As we went through our early organizational thoughts, wesaid, “Why don’t we host an open tryout in the spring?” We wanted tosee if we could pick up a few players who could come in and help us dur-ing our ten-week training camp. In 1976 we had six preseason games, socamp was long and tough. You need plenty of bodies to keep intensepractice sessions going. Believe me when I say, practices were combative!The open tryout was a fun (and in some cases, humorous) event.All sizes and shapes showed up. Some had almost no football experi-ence. Some had high school experience. Very few had college experi-ence and a few had been in other training camps. We put those attend-ing through every basic football drill we could without pads on and with-out killing someone. Only a few appeared to have a little talent. Butthere was one who kept jumping out at us in the drills, and when wefinally timed them all in the 40-year dash, this guy ran very well. Hisname was Vince, and when he ran a fast time, we found out his lastname was Papale. He had already displayed other athletic movementskills, and now speed. So why not invite him to training camp? Trainingcamp numbers were not limited to 80 like today, so what did we have tolose?The next step was to interview Vince and find out where he wascoming from and what were his expectations. It didn’t take long to rec-ognize his passion to play was greater than his talent to play, but whenyou combined them, there was a slight chance you could end up with a
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B
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 NVINCIBLE
possible contributor. His story was warm, sincere, compassionate and aperfect fit for the Philadelphia environment.Training camp opened in early July, which is the hot, humid timeof the year in the Delaware Valley. A lot of guys quit before they evergave themselves a shot, but Vince thrived. He got better every day anddemonstrated the intensity it would take to end up being a good specialteams player. He would get just as tired as everyone else, but would tryvery hard not to show it. The combination of his athletic skills, passionand work ethic made the evaluation process easy. The only thing we did-n’t know was how much of what we were seeing would transfer to gameday. With six preseason games, he would get a chance to demonstratehow he would handle the pressure of game day competition, and needlessto say, he excelled, especially in covering punts and kickoffs.Vince liked to hit people! It was fun for him and it really madethe decision process easier. You don’t cover punts and kickoffs live inpractice sessions, so the only time we could test him was on game day. Iwas very glad that he passed the test with flying colors. The coachescouldn’t help but root for this kid to make it, and since I had the finalsay in personnel decisions, I was convinced we had someone who couldhelp us build the foundation we would eventually win with.It’s a good story, and it’s also true. It’s a story that many couldduplicate if they could do things the same way that Vince did, regardlessof their endeavor. One of the greatest things a person can be is a goodexample—an example worthy of emulation. Vince is that, and I’m surethere are many other Vinces out there who just haven’t given themselvesa chance.The years have passed, our relationship has matured and Vince’sopportunities have expanded due to his ability to take a vision and rein-force it with a value system and a process that would not allow negativesor setbacks to misdirect him. He found a way to invest in the presentthat would ultimately dictate what his future could become. He’s experi-enced tough times and bad days like we all have—health issues, all theobstacles that most of us face at one time or another. But due to his driveto excel, Vince never used them as excuses to fail. He used them asmotivation to succeed. If you get nothing else out of this book, take with
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